


Etched Upon Flesh

by lady__sansa_stark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: About 5 years before the events of the books/show, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, But then it becomes canon-verse, EDIT2: there's now 3 chapters lol so much for a oneshot, EDIT3: 4th chapter but now it's officially done!, F/M, Pre-Game of Thrones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-09-08 18:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8855635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady__sansa_stark/pseuds/lady__sansa_stark
Summary: Shortly after being named Master of Coin under King Robert, Petyr Baelish is sent to discuss the finances of the North.He was expecting distaste - at him from Catelyn and the Starks. He was expecting to hate the bitter cold and its dreary people.Petyr was not expecting to discover the girl that is meant to be his.Soulmates AU





	1. { Petyr, 293 AC }

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this soulmates post on tumblr: http://lady--sansa-stark.tumblr.com/post/154602955689/  
> \---  
> [pls forgive me for the absolute creepiness of this fic. I thought of it a while ago and I've been itching to write it after my finals. Let me know what you think! :D ]

            The North was just as dark and cold as he suspected. Worse, almost, given that Petyr Baelish was here not of his own volition. Sometimes in his dreams, he imagined the North as nothing but covered in thick snow with wild wolves and bears running rampant. A cruel, terrible place.

            Still, he rode for the Winterfell.

            Still – and against all better judgement, what with his letter never receiving a response all those years ago – Petyr _hoped_. Hoped that perhaps she might have changed her mind. Might have realized that the North was not suitable to her liking. That she had made a _mistake_ in spurning him.

            Petyr wondered if she would even allow him access into the castle. Or call upon the guards to throw tar over the gates. Cast him out. Again.

            A common thread, at least. Petyr would at least be able to see her again, if only in passing. If only in comparison to the ethereal image set in his mind from all those years ago. To see those soft, auburn curls and bright blue eyes. But not with softness or kindness towards Petyr – in the grip of reality, the curls were aflame and the oceans were tumultuous when set upon him, whether boy or man.

            But there was something else. Something that kept Petyr pressing towards those frost-covered towers and through the sparse white littering the ground.

            Catelyn might have been the love of his life. But Catelyn Tully was not his _soulmate_.

            No. That honor belonged to another.

            A person Petyr had hoped to at least spy on whilst on political matters for the King. If he were lucky, the named person would be half as pretty as the love of his life. Which would be difficult, given the predisposition of anything _Stark_ to be brute and muddied.

            The marking on his arm itched. Almost as loudly, almost as scathing as the mark running down his chest. But it was the truth of the matter, wasn’t it? That the terrible scar cutting through skin – one that gave Petyr an awful shudder, despite the biting cold nipping at any exposed flesh – that the scar had been a _choice_. A symbol of a choice. That Petyr imagined he could deny the gods and _choose_ the person he most desired. That Petyr somehow was above the fate that ruled mortals.

            He wasn’t.

            Instead, the gods had other plans for Petyr. Or so he imagined. Why else spare the love-struck boy, so mutilated and torn – on the edge of death – from his fantasies and songs?

            _Life is not a song_ , he thought bitterly.

            It itched again as the guards on the battlements began to form. They were calling to other guards to open the gate.

            It burned beneath his furs. Words as black as pitch, forever etched into the flesh of his left arm. The gods had a sort of _humor_ in devising humans – printing the words of their supposed soulmate upon skin. The first words. No face or place or date. Just a line and a pat on the rump and a mocking sneer hidden in the blackness of the words

            A cruel joke; an endless hunt to search for a person’s other half.

            Petyr tried to carve the words out, so many years ago. To instead write Catelyn’s name over the stark black letters. To impose the mimicry of her sweet voice into his flesh. Remembering her first words and replacing them with the damning ones. Petyr wanted her, oh how he wanted Catelyn so desperately, so _fervently_. The boy was willing to challenge fate. To announce to the gods: _You are wrong – I have already found the love of my life_.

            Sometimes he still heard the faint echoes of the gods laughing at him. The whisper of the sword slicing his chest. His own screams.

            The gates approached, closer. And then he was through.

            Catelyn at the least had no plans to throw tar upon him. Perhaps because Petyr rode not for himself but for the King; and such an act would be seen as a slight to the crowned Baratheon himself. Or perhaps because the King and her _lord husband_ were long-time friends (even in his mind, that phrase was filled with a sticky disgust). That no matter how deep Catelyn’s undying hatred of Petyr ran through Tully blood, she could not go against her husband.

            His chest hurt.

            Petyr stepped onto the hard earth of the North, gazing at the castle without love. It was rather ugly – grey and grey and more grey. Brown and white upon the earth. Grey and white upon the walls. The people, too. Worn and used to the biting sting of a never-ending winter. Petyr couldn’t help but imagine the snickers of them, of how they laughed at a Southroner in his endless furs and clean boots.

            They were beneath him. They were _nothing_.

            Petyr Baelish was not the one standing in Winterfell today. It was Lord Baelish, Master of Coin to the crown. It was a man who did not care or would not care about the North and its people. No matter how deep the fire of disdain at the mention of _Stark_ ran through his veins, as cold and dark as the North.

            But the name Stark filled Petyr with as much hope as it did dread.

            _They_ were here. Somewhere. Not in Winterfell, perhaps. But the North, where the Starks feared to venture South (into good weather and fine clothing).

            If the gods were kind, he might chance upon them.

            “Lord Baelish?”

            Petyr turned to face a messenger, a boy half his age with terrible pockmarks. The boy announced that Lord Stark was waiting for him in his study.

            Petyr thanked the boy, following him. Ledgers of finances were tucked under his arm. Snow mixed with dirt crunched beneath his boots, dirtying the leather.

            He wondered if this was a ploy of Catelyn’s. To make him feel unwelcomed in what was as much _her_ home as it had been Brandon’s. To not have the King’s Coinmaster welcomed by the Lord of Winterfell upon his arrival.

            Or perhaps Petyr had thought too high of himself. He was no highborn Lord or a King. Not ever in the eyes of people already so high up.

            It would not be the first time Petyr would try and perch himself high in those vaults. A dream – where the house Baelish meant more than dreary rocks and sheep shit. But Petyr had to remember that outside of the plots weaving within his mind, _Lord Baelish_ was not much of a man to Westeros. Yet. And _Littlefinger_ was even lower, if only because the name still rankled within him. Still caused that scar to ache at its mention.

            They were threading their way up stairs towards the Lord’s study, Petyr cursing at the shortness in his lungs caused from the biting cold. Somehow, it _was_ warm inside the walls of Winterfell. Not South warm, but not frozen as outside had been. He trailed his fingers along the stone walls, surprised at how uncharacteristically warm they were.

            “Petyr.”

            Oh, how he once _longed_ for that voice. To hear those two syllables sung sweetly, just for him. To see them formed on pink lips, wide with the sort of pleasure only he could bring her. And how he _did_ , once, so long ago.

            Oh, how those syllables echoed into the room, filled with _disgust_.

            Petyr couldn’t help but smirk at Catelyn, if only because he was sure it would annoy her. “Cat, my sweet. How are you?”

            She was beautiful still, that he had to admit. Her hair still carried that bright hue, the only sort of color upon the all the dreary grey. Her eyes: blue and fierce, not ever underestimating the _lengths_ that Petyr would go to get what he wanted. Yet there was a kindness towards him – a kindness that kept Petyr’s wound from being fatal.

            Time had not aged her horribly, though Petyr wondered if anything could make her unbeautiful. Not even the child in her arms, asleep, with a dreadful mop of brown upon his head. A pity the dreadful Stark ran stronger in the blood – _red_ was far prettier than any shade of brown. There was another child hiding behind their mother’s skirts.

            None of that made Catelyn less beautiful. Not the children. Not even the look of pure distaste etched upon her skin.

            Catelyn did not take to the pleasantries. “Once you have finished business with my husband, you and Robert’s men will see yourselves out.”

            “And what if we finish when the moon has risen high in the night?”

            “Then I hope you have brought lanterns.”

            Petyr’s own jest was cut short when a door down the hall creaked open. The smile on his lips faded.

            The man was so like his brother, Petyr couldn’t help the burning hatred within is chest. Along his scar. Lord Eddard Stark was plain, rugged; worn from living in such a dreary place like the North. Worn from wearing the burdens of his brother upon his shoulders. Petyr could see how heavy they fell – lightened by the wife that should not have been his. Still heavy, still capable of eventually breaking the man one day.

            Petyr bit back the disgust that was threatening to make itself known at the _sight_ of Stark.

            But he held the hatred and disgust away. He wasn’t Petyr today. Not even with Catleyn – as beautiful and strong-willed as she was back in Riverrun.

            He was Lord Baelish. Littlefinger. The Master of Coin for King Robert.

            Petyr was not here for himself. And what would it matter if he was? The coolness in Catelyn’s voice made it all too clear just _where_ she would stand on any issue that was not pressing for the kingdom. That Petyr had been right: if he was not with the King’s men, he would have tar sticking his furs to his skin and his horse headed back towards King’s Landing.

            Petyr swept into a bow. “Lord Stark, a pleasure. I take it you are prepared to discuss the financial standings of the North and its fealty to the crown?”

            Eddard stared between Petyr and his wife – feeling the tension filling the hall, cold and thick. Certainly Catelyn had told Eddard of the childhood _friend_ from Riverrun; of the boy who once dueled with Brandon for her honor and hand? Of the boy who nearly died?

            The look on the Lord’s face suggested otherwise.

            A pity.

            Petyr tightened his hold on the bundle of ledgers under his arm, walking towards Lord Stark without a passing glance at Catelyn. He imagined she might recoil should he give her anything so much as a passing glance. A biting word, or a biting slap? Petyr couldn’t deny the sick sort of pleasure he could derive from the latter.

            A ledger slipped, clattering to the floor with a resounding _thump_.

            Petyr bent to pick it up, but was beat to it.

            Small, delicate hands wrapped around the leather-bound papers, lifted towards him in offering.

            He couldn’t stop _staring_.

            It was Catelyn. Younger – as if the Catelyn from Riverrun had flung herself out of Petyr’s thoughts and into the present, standing before him with hair just as fiery and eyes just as entrancing.

            But it was not Catelyn. The Catelyn of the real world would not steep so _low_ as to offer aide to Petyr. The Catelyn of the real world would not allow her eyes to contain a shred of softness or curiosity. And such a deep, endless shade of blue the eyes before him were! – far more entrancing than the whole of Blackwater Bay. And skin, as pale as moonlight upon snow, framed by wild curls of dusk falling upon the Red Keep.

            He found his fingers. Moved them to collect the ledger. Oh, but how they _itched_ to loop through an errant curl. To remember the softness of Tully hair – to run his hands and lose themselves in the memory made flesh.

            An attempt of a smile fell upon his lips. A mimic of the thoughts that clanged within his mind and formed into tangible words. Petyr’s voice was low, barely a whisper: “You must be one of her daughters. You have the Tully look.”

            She collected her skirts and curtsied. Though Petyr had to wonder if the move was from the whispered sort of compliment he muttered (and wondered if she heard), or if it was a childish form of _you’re welcome_.

            “I’m Sansa Stark.” She hardly finished her curtsy before Catelyn grabbed the girl and hid her again behind skirts.

            Oh, but he already knew her name.

            He had known for such a long, long time. Those words – those three words that had always been his damning. A terrible shadow hanging over him within the walls of Riverrun They had always been etched into Petyr. Had been nearly carved from his skin.

            His eyes flitted to Catelyn. Petyr saw the underlying fear writ upon her face. No, not underlying. It had always been there. She had been attempting to _hide_ Sansa from Petyr from the start.

            Because she knew full well the words etched into Petyr’s arm. She knew how often he tried to instead write her own name.

            Had she simply _forgotten_? Had the years apart made Catelyn forget all about the young, love-struck boy from the Fingers? Forget about the intensity of the boy’s love and the hatred of an unknown girl that the gods deemed his?

            Or was this – this fleeting introduction, only a few seconds long but feeling like a lifetime – was this truly the wicked work of the gods? That the _love_ of Petyr’s life might have been the mother, but the one _destined_ for him was instead the daughter.

            It was cruel, indeed. He wondered who it was crueler for.

            Sansa was still hiding amongst Catelyn’s skirts. A child of perhaps six or seven name-days. So young and so _beautiful_. Peaking from behind fabric at this strange man.

            What Petyr would do to spy the black letters carved into Sansa’s own skin. To ensure that the gods’ humor finally aligned with Petyr’s own.

            But he let the moment pass. Let the fear in Catelyn’s eyes go unnoticed.

            He did not again glance towards the mother or the daughter during his stay in Winterfell.

            Petyr turned towards Lord Stark, motioning for the brutish man to lead him into the study and discuss the finances of the North. Eddard had the same hint of fear within his eyes, etched into the faint lines of his skin. He was looking back at Catelyn, and Petyr could see the words unspoken between them.

            There was a sort of anger coiled with the fear. Resentment. Disappointment.

            Petyr thought the Starks might try to fight against fate, too. To forcibly carve out the words upon their daughter’s skin – to fight against the gods, all of them whether old or new. He had to wonder to what sort of _lengths_ they might undergo to keep someone like Petyr away.

            Wed their daughter to someone, _anyone_ else. Someone even more baseborn than he. Someone far higher – a future king. Anyone but _him_.

            To his surprise, Lord Stark led Petyr away from Catelyn and the boy and the girl.

 _Sansa_.

            How sweet and delicate the name sounded now. Behind Eddard, Petyr couldn’t help the terrible grin spreading from his lips into his entire body. He felt it burn along the black of his arm – and for once, that ache was welcomed.

            Oh, he could play the games for now.

            Sansa was far too young – but she would grow. Become a woman far more beautiful than Catelyn ever was. He could wait. Allow the years to pass without another visit to the North or mention of the cruelty of the gods. The Starks might forget him, too. In his mind, the threads were weaving into patterns around the new piece of ivory and red. It sat at the board’s center. Others were shifting, moving until they sat just where he wanted.

            It would take time. Years. An aching wait, but with a delicious and satisfying end.

            Until then, there was nothing that Catelyn or Eddard – or the entirety of Westeros - _nothing_ that they could do that would stop Petyr from taking what was his.


	2. { Sansa, 298 AC }

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [So I couldn’t resist writing a part 2 (though definitely in part because so many people bugged for one ahaha) :P  
> This chapter is Sansa’s pov, shortly after she’s arrived in King’s Landing. Keeping more with the book canon-verse at first, but with a nice dosage of some terrible creepy sinning ;) Enjoy!]

 

            The tourney was everything Sansa ever expected.

            She sat in the stands, with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole to her left, and her father Lord Eddard Stark on the right. Sansa watched in amazement at the brave knights jousting at one another. _For honor_ , she thought. _For glory._ _And for bravery, too, and for the sight of young maidens – who they shall sweep off their feet and ride into the fading sun_.

            Well, not quite that last part. Stories of brave, shining knights filled Sansa’s head, ever since she could remember. The women in Winterfell told the stories and sang the songs for Sansa of gallant knights who always rescued the maiden girl, riding away to their happily ever afters. Each story was like a memory to Sansa. Each story entranced her every time she heard it, despite listening to them hundreds of times.

            Perhaps one day, a gallant knight would ride and joust and win, for the glory of his bride. For her.

            Sansa looked over at the podium where the royal family sat to watch the days’ events. Or, looked over at the boy with soft, golden curls and a handsome face that Sansa could not stop spying at when she first saw him. The face now seemed rather _interested_ in the activities below. A face that lit with glee when a knight was bested by a lance; a face that _whooped_ when splinters wove their way between plates of armor.

            Joffrey was _hers_ , she thought. Her gallant knight.

            The riotous cheering brought Sansa’s gaze back down to the riders. A boy representing sky blue and silver – the Vale of Arryn, she remembered the house, with a sigil of moon and falcon. A rather nasty, long splinter of a jousting lance stood skyward, set deep within a crack of armor at the boy’s neck. From it and his mouth, crimson flowed and flowed, staining the earth.

            Jeyne hadn’t the stomach for it. She hardly had the stomach for any violence, even back in Winterfell. But here – with a young, brave knight choking to death on his own blood – Jeyne’s limit had been reached. Septa Mordane ushered the girl away for a breath of fresh air. Sansa watched them leave, and wondered. Wondered how the sight of death that hadn’t set her own stomach churning in disgust.

            The knight couldn’t have been any older than Robb or Jon, Sansa thought sadly. His armor was shining wherever crimson didn’t stain it red. The body was taken away, the blood shoveled over with dirt, and the jousting resumed.

            The second half of the day’s events went by without Sansa paying much attention to them.

            She thought of knights – of the stories again, and of the boy wrapped in sky blue. And of another boy wrapped in gold and crimson with hair as soft and warm as the sun beating down upon the field.

            A chill threaded its way through Sansa, despite the glaring summer heat and the press of bodies around her.

            It wasn’t the first time. A chill that dug deeper than her flesh – far beneath, inside her bones and down through veins, and even further into the massless shape of her soul. That’s where the chill always wound up in the end. Sansa could trace it back, through the winding blood and the bones and the flesh and out above the fabrics falling upon her skin.

            Sansa looked at Joffrey again. The chill echoed, as if sensing its source beneath the soft curls of the young Lion.

            It was always there. Since the start – since she first met him. Her _soulmate_ , Sansa thought. Though… even the idea alone set the chill into a low growl.

            She wound back through her memories of the last few weeks. Of how she and Joffrey met when King Robert rode for Winterfell to call on her father to be his new Hand of the King. Sansa regretted that she could not remember much else, except for covert stares towards Joffrey whenever he was in the same room as her. How she would whisper with Jeyne about the handsome young prince. How she desperately _implored_ her mother and father to let her wed Joffrey.

            But despite what Sansa thought – that she belonged in the North, that the young prince would not be an ideal match – they had been _eager_. So _willing_ , almost, to allow Sansa and Joffrey to wed. Excited that Sansa’s eyes had finally caught onto her own gallant knight of songs.

            _He’s the love of my life_ , Sansa thought, standing in the courtyard of Winterfell, as the golden prince placed a soft kiss on the back of her hand. And then when Joffrey said, “You are one of the Stark daughters, since you have the beautiful Tully looks and strong Stark spirit,” Sansa had thought the words to be _close enough_ to the black markings etched over her porcelain skin.

            Certainly the gods had meant for the words to be an _approximation_. Right? How would they have been able to predict the _exact_ phrase? The first words spoken by a pair of souls so damnably intertwined that even the gods ushered them together since the moment of their birth.

            And Joffrey had been close. Perhaps he stumbled the words in his head, Sansa thought. Perhaps he had known exactly what to say, but was as entranced by her beauty as she was his, that his tongue betrayed the compliment.

            A sign from the gods that this was meant to be.

            And yet…

            Somehow – somewhere in the back of her mind, where that creeping chill sometimes sat when it grew tired of gnawing at her soul – somehow, the words echoed in her mind through a different voice. The words of her soulmate forever inked into her skin, spoken through a voice that was very unlike the boyish tone of Joffrey. Deeper and darker, with a sort of _amused_ lilt to the end.

            Shadows. That’s all Sansa could see when she thought of who that voice belonged to. A blurred vision of grey and black. _Thought, or remembered_? She couldn’t tell, could never tell.

            Sometimes she wondered if yes, she did already meet her soulmate. If yes, her soulmate and her had already exchanged the gods-picked words etched on their own skins – and the words spoken were not approximations, but the exact things.

            If no, her soulmate and her love of her life were not the same boy, with golden curls and a mouth twisted watching the knights thrust at one another for honor and glory.

            She would remember him, right? Her soulmate, had they ever met.

            Sansa’s fingers absentmindedly crept along the side of her dress, from waist to shoulder and back. Below the fabric and above the skin sat the midnight letters. She could conjure the exact tilt of the letters and shape of the curls. She could recite them from memory – but not with her own voice. Never with her own voice.

            Another chill – but not. Not cold, not the thread of uncertainty that crept in her mind whenever she spied upon Joffrey from the corner of her vision.

            She turned away from the Lion.

            A young man strode through the arena on a white horse, wearing some of the finest armor Sansa had ever seen. She knew him as Loras Tyrell. And had Sansa met him before, she was sure the stories she was always told – of those brave knights – would be modeled after his image.

            He approached the stands, a red rose in hand. _Red, not white_ , she thought.

            And Loras spotted her, reaching to hand the rose to her. “Sweet lady, no victory is half so beautiful as you,” he said, and rode off to gather his lance.

            Sansa flushed – in surprise, because no other girl had received a _red_ rose (red for her hair? for her beauty?) – and in _embarrassment_. For thinking that Loras might have instead been a much knightlier choice for soulmate. He was older than Sansa, and older than Joffrey. But far more _handsome_.

            And he had given her a _red_ rose.

            But the handsome knight rode away in her mind without her. Sansa’s soulmate was already promised to her. And unless the gods were exceptionally wicked, why would they provide her someone _false_ , only to replace it with someone else who was meant to be hers?

            Sansa didn’t think the gods to be wicked or cruel, whether old or new.

            She tried to hide the blush by smelling the rose, warmed by the late-afternoon sun. Her eyes closed, imagining Loras and his shining armor and his soft, brown hair. Imagining those pitch-black words coming from his lips. _A red rose, just for me_.

            “A beautiful rose for a beautiful young lady.”

            Sansa’s eyes flew open just in time to see her father’s hand grip firmly onto her arm. He was staring past her, a hint of _something_ etched on his face. Fear? No, Lord Eddard Stark would not be afraid of someone at a tourney, whether up in the stands or down in the arena. Anger? No, this was not the anger of her father, cold and certain and heavy, like the Valyrian sword he carried.

            Disgust.

            An emotion Sansa wasn’t sure she had ever spied on her father’s face before.

            Sansa followed his gaze.

            A man stood in the empty hollow where Jeyne and Septa Mordane once were (and who were still missing, despite the day’s festivities drawing to a close). He wasn’t tall like her father, or as broad. Or carried the same _disgust_ upon his own face.

            There was a smile to his lips, yet it hadn’t reached any further.

            A faint tickle at the back of her head told Sansa that she had met this man before. That there was something _familiar_ in that turn of lips, in those dark mossy eyes.

            The shadow remained.

            He saw it, too. That blur behind her eyes of _uncertainty_.

            And then the man’s smile faded. So did the familiarity. He’s gaze moved behind Sansa towards her father, sizing Lord Stark up with grey, uncaring eyes.

            He said nothing else before walking away.

            Still, the grip on her arm persisted. Pressed, _dug_ into her flesh. Sansa practically had to peel her father’s fingers away, one at a time. It wasn’t until the pinky was lifted did Ned Stark realize the pain he had caused to his daughter, and profusely apologized.

            The tourney continued without Sansa. She sat in her thoughts again, watching without watching the riders. The sun was just beginning to dip in the hills beyond the city when the feast was announced and people began to bustle out of the stands. Sansa returned to her body then.

            She found her voice, too, and the courage to ask her father: “Who was that man earlier?”

            Yet her father’s reply was short. It was amplified by the tenseness in his face that persisted from when the man approached, and even throughout the feast. “He is of no concern, Sansa. It is best to forget him.” He kissed the top of her head.

            And she tried.

            She tried to erase the not-quite-mirth from the man’s lips. Tried to erase the haunting press of those grey eyes that seemed to sweep over her – from face and hair to dress, and back, over and over. Tried to erase that nagging chill that prodded at the back of her mind.

            She tried to ease the man out through the bountiful food and the conversations and the lemon cakes.

            The moon had long risen in the black sky when she wound through the halls of the Keep and into the soft embrace of her bed. Even then, Sansa tried to follow the wishes of her father and forget the man.

            But she couldn’t.

* * *

            Sansa wandered through the halls of the Red Keep. Jeyne was still feeling sick from the death of the Vale knight yesterday, and Septa Mordane was keeping an eye on the child. She didn’t need to, not with the various septons or apothecaries in King’s Landing that were just as qualified to deal with whatever it was the Jeyne fell sick with. But her septa had stayed, and in turn left Sansa alone to wander.

            She could be at the tourney. She _should_ , be, as the future bride of Joffrey – who was the future _king_ of Westeros.

            Even now, standing in the Great Hall of the Keep, staring at the monstrosity of the throne towering at the far end. The throne that Joffrey would sit upon, one day. As king. And Sansa… Somehow, Sansa couldn’t let the word _queen_ pass through her thoughts. The idea alone set a whirlwind raging in her tummy.

            It was absurd. It was wonderful. It was terrifying.

            It was so many things at once.

            Sansa might have fallen ill to whatever Jeyne was under, too, just at the thought of the throne and what it represented. That one day, Joffrey – Sansa’s lord husband, her king, her soulmate – would sit upon the mass of warped iron and rule over half of the world. And she would be by his side throughout.

            The whirlwind persisted.

            “A rather _uncomfortable_ seat, wouldn’t you agree?”

            Her body jumped at the sound, at the unknown intrusion into her thoughts. As though the person had been witness to the unsure voices whispering through Sansa’s mind.

            She wanted to apologize for the thoughts. To say she didn’t _mean_ to waver in her love for Joffrey or the prospect of being a queen.

            The words were nearly out as she turned, but caught when she found grey-green eyes and the man behind them.

            _It’s him_ , that pestering voice echoed from the back of her head.

            _Who? Who is he?_ Sansa asked it. Silence.

            Sansa glanced between the man – who was taking slow steps towards her, still a long distance away in the massive hall – and the throne. She heard the stories of the Targaryans and their throne. Of the Dragons who smelted the swords of their infinite enemies into a physical manifestation of their victory. _I won_ , the throne sneered.

            The echoes of his feet stopped. Sansa replied, “Yes, I can’t imagine it to be very comfortable.”

            She didn’t turn back to see the man or the certain turn of his lips. Or how many feet he left between them. The voice whispered: _turn around Sansa, turn around_. Sansa asked _why?_ \- and she was met with more silence.

            The silence spread out into the room, filling the space between her and the throne and the man.

            “You must be one of her daughters.”

            The silence froze, grey heavy. Sansa felt the air in her lungs choke her, felt the blood running fast and strong turn solid. His voice was hardly a whisper in the large hall. Yet as much as it felt so far away, it too felt as though he had stood inches away and spoken the words straight into her ear, straight into her mind and heart. And reaching further, to that suddenly burning ache at her side. As though the midnight-black words caught fire.

            He continued: “You have the Tully look.”

            The fire turned into an inferno upon her skin. Sansa willed her body to turn around. Her feet felt leaden, heavy with the frozen blood, but they moved.

            The smirk was there – but it left his lips and found, barely, the edges of his eyes. His hand was outstretched, with nothing in his palm. Air filtered between his fingers, as though he was willing something to exist between them.

            And then the shadows – grey and black and green and silver – they rearranged into _him_.

            Sansa could feel the heavy leather in her hands. Could see the heavy furs piled atop a man that was very much out of place in the North. Could feel the sharp tug of her mother’s hand, and the soft press of her mother’s skirts meaning to hide the girl.

            There was another memory, too, flittering between the heavy leather and the outstretched arm. A conversation, an _argument_ , between her mother and father. Quiet words teeming with anger: _Of all the names in Westeros, you had to pick **that** one?_ To which the solemn words of her father replied: _If I had known about that man and the words, I would have chosen something else_.

            Sansa rather liked her name. She remembered laughing at the idea that her father named he because her mother was too tired after giving birth. She thought it fell off the tongue in two sweet syllables: San-sa. But she could hear the resentment, the _disgust_ in her mother’s voice each time she called her.

            “Sweet Sansa.”

            And then the memory was gone.

            Before Sansa stood the man, with his hand still open and reaching for her. She glanced at his lips again, and realized how she always knew what that unknown voice sounded like. As though she had heard the voice before, in some wayward dream years ago.

            She had. And it sounded the same – dark and amusing and… and something she couldn’t quite place. Something even _darker_ than the voice that was always whispering in her mind.

            “Life is not a song, sweet Sansa, despite what your mother and septa might have told you time and again.” The man hadn’t moved any closer, but set his hand back to his side. His fingers were scratching at fabric covering his left arm.

            When Sansa didn’t respond, he continued. Those grey-green eyes flitted between Sansa and the throne behind her. “One day, sweetling, you might come to understand. The songs, the knights, the fair maidens – none of it is true. No matter how often you try to carve the words out, or rearrange them, nothing will change. The gods have already decided a part of our fates. The rest is left to us, to mold and create however we wish.”

            His eyes fell back on her, moving far more languidly than he had yesterday. Her eyes, her lips. Over auburn hair, and each lazy curl that fell over her shoulders. Down her neck, across her chest. As if _searching_ for something. Or, just as likely remembering.

            Sansa gazed over the man, too. At the lazy waves of his dark hair, at the threads of silver weaving at the sides and belying the man’s age. His face was smooth – lacking in the scars or lines that were slowly carved into her own father’s face. _He is younger, then. Younger than my father and mother._ Down her eyes traveled: the neatly-trimmed beard, the finely-tailored doublet without a hint of dust.

            Somehow, Sansa thought that she was remembering, too.

            When his eyes finally finished their exploration and fell back onto hers, he took a step. Another. Slow, sure steps towards her, as if allowing her time to leave should she want to. But Sansa didn’t move – because her feet were frozen or because of something else, she wasn’t sure.

            Less than an arm’s length away he stopped. She could feel his warmth, could feel her own body heat up – beginning at the words trailing her side, spreading out into her chest and even down to her fingers. She could feel the thrumming of her heart that was too rapid, to eager, to be from fear or embarrassment.

            A hand reached up to cup Sansa’s face. His fingers were soft, warm, _pressing_. The thumb drew lazy circles across her cheek. Tendrils of warmth grew from it, mixing with the rest of the fire coiling inside Sansa.

            Instinct told her to close her eyes, so she did. Instinct told her to press back into his hand, so she did. To press back into the face she knew was approaching hers. She could smell mint, and fell the faintest brush of his beard, and then his lips–

            “Sansa?” a voice called out.

            The warmth was gone. Hand, face.

            When Sansa opened her eyes, she frowned at the emptiness of the room. She spun on her feet, looking, searching for the man and his terrible hand and mouth and words.

            _Life is not a song_ , he had said.

            A cold ache crept within her as her body stopped its spinning, facing the throne.

            _The songs, the knights, the fair maidens – none of it is true_.

            Sansa felt the chill again as her eyes swept over each pointed sword of the throne. As she tried to imagine Joffrey sitting upon it, and her at its base. She stared at herself, at the crown sitting upon her head and the fine silks draping her body.

            Only, when she looked back up at the seat, Joffrey had transformed into a man with calculating eyes and a wicked mouth. And there, sitting beside him, was a beautiful women dressed in silver silks with a jeweled crown atop a curtain of red curls, matching the one sat upon black waves with silvered streaks.

            And slowly the woman turned to the man. Body pressing closer. Hand rising to cup the man’s face and bring it towards her. There was a smirk on her lips, and his, and then their mouths met.

            Sansa shook her head.

            Another ache pressed itself into her thoughts. Her side was _burning_. As though those midnight-black letters were freshly seared into her skin. As though the faintest brush of his hand on her cheek had set the words alight in an inferno incapable of being put out.

            “There you are, Sansa.”

            Her septa had announced that Jeyne was feeling better, and if they left now they could see the end of the sword-fighting. Her septa also noted the considerable _flush_ to Sansa’s cheeks, to which Sansa feigned the summer’s heat.

            She followed Septa Mordane through the halls, passing guards and loitering lords and ladies. She chatted with Jeyne on the way to the tourney, and sat beside her as they watched the knights fight with swords, striking at each other for glory. The crowds cheered loudest when a knight nearly decapitated another – a bloodthirsty call for death, like the young knight yesterday.

            The tourney was not what Sansa was expecting, not anymore.

            Her eyes glanced up at the royal family again. At the boy with golden curls and eyes that lit each time a knight fell to the ground.

            _The gods are cruel_ , she thought.

            So she sat, but she did not watch.

            Sansa couldn’t help but wonder about the man with those endless grey-green eyes. About the man – and not the boy – who was promised by the gods to be _hers_.

            How cruel, how wicked the gods were, to send Sansa a golden prince to love and wed and rule beside. And the prince was not _hers_ , not truly.

            Not ever hers, like the man who spoke the gods-written words. The man who sent a roaring blaze through her body at the mere _touch_ of his fingers.

            And even now, just remembering their encounter, Sansa could not stop the burning press of the midnight words across her skin.

            She wondered if it ever would. Or if she would let it consume her until there was nothing left.

            If it were a game – if everyone were a piece, and Westeros were the board they sat upon, spanning the world of yesterday and today and tomorrow – Sansa couldn’t help but wonder if she might have been one of the infinite pieces sitting on the board. A piece of silver and blue and red. And upon that ever-stretching board, she saw her piece in the future standing tall and proud with a crown. But not beside a piece of gold and crimson.

            One of silver and black and green, with a twinned crown upon its head.

            Somehow, Sansa thought that that man might risk a lot. Might destroy every other piece on the board, some until they were nothing but dust, just so he and Sansa remained. Standing above the shattered fragments. Together.

            And Sansa wasn’t sure if she would stop him.


	3. { Petyr, 300 AC }

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Literally everyone asked for more of this story, so here you go :P Admittedly this took a while (and is not at all what I originally thought) but I think it still came out pretty good!]

 

            A sliver of pale morning light broke above the horizon, slicing up into the midnight sky. Light bounced off the rippling waves – a sea of undulating lines, forever lost in a motion of seen and unseen. Light bounced atop the low fog – creeping just above the water, searching for unsuspecting victims beneath the waves.

            Petyr watched the sun rise, listened to the faint whisper of wind against the boat. He had been pacing the length of the _Merling King_ for hours now, since long before the sun dipped into night. Slow, determined pacing, as if this was just another night and these were just hours to mindlessly while away. Slow, determined, so as not to seem _too_ anxious. And he was – dear gods, was Petyr anxious. And whether or not Petyr seemed frantic was of no concern to his crew – they were _paid_ for their loyalty, after all. Petyr imagined he could be sprinting across the deck and pulling his hair and crying into the dark night, and the sailors and knights would only watch in concerned silence.

            But Petyr wasn’t willing to let anyone see the worry hiding just beneath his mask. Wasn’t willing to let anyone see the sliver of uncertainty coiling within him – for hours, for days – clawing and gnawing and murmuring that _something would go wrong_.

            The death of a king was no small matter, of course – even if the king himself _was_ a small matter. The Lion truly would be nothing but a small footnote in the tomes of Westeros’ rulers. Tonight, there had been many great pieces lined up for poor Joffrey’s death – and an infinite many more that would shed false tears for his untimely passing. As for tears, Petyr regretted not being present to witness the proud Lioness’s cheeks glisten, to hear her sadden roars echo through King’s Landing’s streets. What a sight to have seen! The great Cersei Lannister, bested because of ill-placed love for a son. Bested for her motherly weakness. And because of it, her own reign under Tommen would be short and rife with pitfalls.

            But all of this was assuming nothing went awry. That no one moved on their own. Long before the sky fell into utter darkness, long before the _Merling King_ encroached into the Bay’s waters, Petyr’s mind was playing out the day’s events. Pieces moved with a resounding _clack_ upon the gameboard: the king, the fool, the roses, the dwarf – and _her_.

            It was for _her_ that the plan was laid. It was because of _her_ that his feet paced back and forth across the deck. It was _her_ that kept his eyes glued to the dark silhouette of King’s Landing whenever he faced port-ward. But most of all, it was _her_ that kept those evil, nagging whispers wriggling deep inside his mind. So far deep to the point where Petyr hadn’t a proper sleep since they set sail from the Vale weeks ago.

            He hated this fear, this waiting. He hated the possibility that she might be lost to him – forever.

            Petyr dug his nails into his bare wrist. _None of that,_ he scolded himself. _Everything will go to plan._ An icy wind wound its way up through the sleeve, and Petyr hoped it might gust away those dark thoughts from his mind. He ignored them as he stared into the lightening sky.

            Dawn was a pretty sight, yes – but not so beautiful as dusk. The pale blues and yellows that cut across the midnight sea and sky were nothing compared to the striking reds and oranges of dusk. And the sea: deep, fathomless, and endlessly _blue_. Reds and blues - nature had been relentlessly torturing Petyr during his long journey to the Bay.

            Months. That’s how long apart they’ve been. That’s how long since he spied ocean-blue eyes staring deep into him. Since he felt the soft dusk of her hair between his fingers. Since he last heard her sweet voice, or saw a true happiness pass her lips.

            Sure, the gods sent Petyr a cheap _imitation_. A wretched thing that latched onto him and begged and begged for more. There was nothing beautiful about Lysa. Nothing of the sky or sea was in the woman. Petyr cringed at the thought of returning to her, hoping for well-timed storms to keep him away. He prayed nature was kind enough not to leave him with only the imitation and rip the true beauty away.

            “Lord Baelish,” came the low voice of Lothor Brune. Petyr turned from the cresting yellow waves to face the knight: holding a torch, he was an old, quiet, uncomely man that Petyr was glad to have under his expenses. _A worthy investment_. Lothor said nothing else, only gestured behind Petyr with his chin.

            Breaking through those pale glittering waves and that ghostly fog was a small, unlit rowboat.

            Petyr’s wrist hurt where he unclenched it. Petyr’s chest ached even worse.

            Sailors and knights on deck were shook awake, either grappling with sails and oars, or grabbing crossbows and loading quarrels into them. Some took to the bow and stern, aiming as the rowboat made sure strokes towards the _Merling King_. Lothor and a handful of others carried torches in one hand and rested the other on their sword pommels. No one save Oswell would know of this ship’s position in the Bay – and yet, no one knew whether or not their plan might have been compromised.

            On and on the rowboat trudged, spied between gaps in the pale fog. Petyr was torn between climbing the mast and looking through sailor’s glass who exactly was on the ship – was there a concealed streak of red rowing towards them? – or going down to his cabin and waiting for Lothor to tell him whether or not she made it out, alive, with that fool.

            Instead, Petyr stood beside Lothor in the center of the deck, frozen, waiting. He could feel each beat of his heart echo inside him, could feel the burning ice of her words on his arms. _Please gods…_

            A _knock_ echoed as the rowboat touched the _Merling King_. Whispers of the men on deck acknowledging who was there. Whispers of the wooden ladder being lowered and _clack_ ing against the ship’s side. Whispers of voices below.

            Petyr watched between two sailors where the ladder hung, listening to the slow footfalls of someone climbing. And behind that, another set of feet climbing. There was no third – which both relieved and terrified him.

            Dark fabric covered the head peaking over the gunwhale, and the sailors moved to lift them onto the deck.

            “She’s cold,” Petyr said, moving towards the figure before his thoughts were coherent. _Safe and alive_. He unfastened his thick cloak, all but forgetting about the icy morning wind biting through his doublet. Just the sight of Sansa filled his body with an indescribable warmth, with an unknown excitement. Petyr draped it over her trembling shoulders – tired and cold and uncertain – leaving his hands beside her neck after clasping the fabric close.  “There. Is that better, my lady? Rest easy, the worst is past and done.”

            The light of Lothor’s torch bounced off of Sansa’s brilliant-blue eyes and cast her auburn hair ablaze. Even beneath her hood, even beneath the ghostly pallor of her – Petyr couldn’t help but stare in awe.

            There was confusion in Sansa’s eyes, at first. He could see the shroud of fear and nervousness from the day’s events tumbling into the evening’s murder and into the night’s escape. All of it finally leading Sansa to _him_. To safety.

            And then, finally – Sansa’s eyes crinkled in relief.

            “Lord Petyr,” called someone from below. From beneath the fog and the water – as if from another world, another time. Except he wasn’t. The voice continued, dragging Petyr away from the girl before him and into the complex arrangement of pieces in his mind. Only one piece remained on the board tonight, and that piece continued: “I must needs row back, before they think to look for me.”

            Petyr moved to the gunwhale, peering down at the _fool_ below. Dontos was wearing a dirty surcoat of pink and red and black. Even from aboard the ship Petyr could smell the lingering alcohol and vomit oozing from the fool. Petyr felt movement beside him, and saw an errant strand of auburn fall from behind Sansa’s hood. She was watching below, too, clutching his cloak beneath her chin. Watching, and waiting. Petyr turned to give Dontos an amiable smile. “But first, you’ll want your payment. Ten thousand dragons, was it?”

            “Ten thousand,” the fool echoed. “As you promised, my lord.” Petyr heard the _hunger_ in Dontos’ words. Heard the thousands of dragons slipping from the fool’s purse into drink and women. And when the dragons finally disappeared, the fool would find the next highest bidder to satisfy his hunger. Yes – Dontos was without a doubt a _fool_. No surcoat could ever make the man a knight again. Not even an endless vault of gold could right him. _Ten thousand quarrels would be more fitting for his false loyalty_ , Petyr thought.

            “Of course,” Petyr said with a wave of his hand, motioning to his men. “Ser Lothor, the reward.”

            Lothor didn’t move from behind Petyr. Three other knights approached instead, crossbows loaded. The fool was dead before his drink-addled brain could register the betrayal. He hadn’t even made a sound as a bolt lodged firmly in his throat. After all three found home in Dontos, Lothor approached, tossing the torch onto the bloody mess below. The sailors set their oars, pushing off against the water. Everyone on deck watched as the flame burned behind them, fading into a speck against the horizon.

            Through it all, Sansa hadn’t said a word. She had grabbed onto his arm, and Petyr could feel the dig of her fingers convey her momentary fear and confusion and hurt as she watched the quarrels impale into Dontos. And yet – nothing.

            Perhaps her time alone in King’s Landing had transformed Sansa into someone else. Someone harder, someone used to such sights. Someone who had been under the _kind tutelage_ of both Cersei and Joffrey Lannister. Sansa was hardly the young, sweet girl he met all those years ago in Winterfell. Sansa was _so much more_ now. Petyr turned to her. “Are you alright, sweetling? We should head inside before you catch a cold. I imagine you must be freezing.”

            Her eyes had been fixed on the fire melding into the yellow horizon. Sansa only nodded, allowing Petyr to lead her beneath deck. When the door had closed behind them and the halls were empty, she spoke.  “He was no friend, no _true_ friend, was he?” And, quieter: “My poor, drunken Florian…”

            Petyr ran his fingers across Sansa’s, feeling the grime and scrapes lining her porcelain flesh. So imperfect: cut and dirtied and thrown away. But still beautiful. Still perfect. And like porcelain, her skin was cold. Petyr slowly rubbed warmth into her fingers. “You understand, do you not? Why your Florian had to die?”

            Seconds passed in silence as Petyr’s fingers worked over her hands. When he looked up at her again, Petyr saw how Sansa’s eyes were fixed on his fingers. He saw how they traveled along with his motions: up and down, thumbs circling round her knuckles. He stopped, and moments later Sansa’s eyes met his.

            Her voice was soft. “Because he was no true knight.”

            Petyr smiled sadly. He continued to work his fingers over hers. “Yes. Life is not a song, sweetling. Knights, _true_ knights, exist only in songs.”

            He thought she might have murmured, _And in real life, the monsters win_. What he didn’t imagine was her voice when she said, “It was you.” It wasn’t a question. Petyr saw her brows furrow as she worked through the past few weeks: the clandestine meetings with her Florian, the subtle shift in her day-to-day life in the castle, the hairnet filled with poison. “You sent me that note. You sent me Dontos. And the plan. And you… You killed Joffrey.”

            “Yes.”

            “And Cersei will have thought I did it, now that I’m out of the city.”

            “Yes, but you are out of the city. Your husband, on the other hand, is not.”

            Sansa bit her lip as she continued to work her way through the finished plan. Petyr could see her mind working, could see all of the hints and passing words fit into the plan that Petyr had conceived.

            “Why?”

            There was no bite to the word. No accusation, no fear. The truth – that’s all she wanted. Sansa stared into him with eyes so clear and so penetrating, Petyr imagined she was seeing through his very being. That with nary a glance, Sansa could see _him_ : the true Petyr Baelish that hid beneath infinite masks and false smiles.

            Perhaps he was right – these months apart had shaped his other half into someone else. Here, Petyr conned and played and worked his way for months to bring Sansa with him. Here, Petyr hoped that these months were just as racking on her as they had been for him. That, somehow, Sansa would have flung herself into his arms and professed her deepest longing for him the moment she stood aboard.

            Perhaps it was only his childish fantasies.

            But Sansa did not fling herself into his arms _because_ she had changed. Because she had learned, had fought against every person shoving her into the dirt – and survived. Thrived within the cesspit of the Red Keep. And through it all, Sansa learned to trust no one. Even him – especially him.

            Petyr couldn’t help but see a small boy with wild dark hair and pained mossy eyes. Sansa was exactly like looking into a mirror of the past, it unnerved him. It excited him.

            The truth… Petyr steeled his mind and heart. There was no going back, not now or ever. Joffrey was dead. Tyrion would be accused for the murder. Cersei and subsequently all of Westeros was in turmoil. And Sansa – Sansa was here, with _him_. Petyr held her fingers in the lightest grip, stared back into her startling eyes. “For you, my sweet Sansa. Everything I did, everything I am – all of it was for _you_.”

            There was only the creaking wood and the whispering wind to fill the silence between them. Petyr held his breath, felt the pounding of his heart reverberate throughout every inch of him.

            Sansa was watching him as closely as Petyr was her. Was analyzing every twitch of muscle, every flicker of eye. Could she feel his heart – this raucous, fragile thing in his chest, beating and beating and beating – echoing his words with each thrum? Petyr thought he could feel an echo of hers where their fingers met.

            But he had thought the same years ago. Had _wanted_ the same from Catelyn. Had fought the gods – and lost. How badly would his heart ruin him this time? How close to death would the gods cast Petyr Baelish? Or was this it, finally the end to whatever shred of human was left within him?

            The growing silence was maddening.

            Sansa’s tongue peeked out between soft, pink lips, and Petyr stared, entranced as it swept across her lips. Stared as finally crept back. Stared as the corners slowly, painfully slowly, turned upwards into the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.

            He hadn’t expected her to throw her arms around him. Hadn’t expected to feel the growing warmth from where her cheek pressed against his, or feel the heavy pulse of her own heart beating beneath his cloak.

            Petyr finally breathed. His arms wrapped around her as if on instinct. She fit, they fit, molded for eachother by the gods. She smelled like dirt and sweat and flowers and lemons. She was soft under his fingers, and warm, and his his his.

            Sansa was _his_.

            Petyr removed his arms just enough to kiss Sansa. _Mine_. Her lips were rough and salty from the long row, but they held an underlying softness and tasted sweet. _Mine_. Her hair was softer still, wrapped about his fingers. _Mine_. And she pressed her lips and her hands and her whole self into him with just as much fervor. _Mine_.

            The door _creak_ ed. He let Sansa go. For once Petyr didn’t curse the noisome squeak. His heart hammered in his chest as he righted his doublet and took slow steps. Sansa followed suit, running quick fingers through her hair. “–and in your room you’ll find a chest with spare clothes: dresses, smallclothes, stockings,” Petyr ad-libbed. He surprised himself with how even his voice was as he spoke. As the footsteps turned the corner, he turned.

            Lothor. _Thank the gods_. The fear in his chest lessened. The older night might be the best-case scenario should anyone spy Petyr Baelish harboring feelings for anyone but himself. But not now. There were still too many uncertainties in the years to come before he could express his heart without someone using it against him.

            Petyr had kept Sansa at a proper distance, and was glad that she was as clever as she had proved to be. While the knight was loyal enough, Petyr didn’t want to doubt the man’s loyalty. Nor did he want to pay the man blackmail money. “Ah, Lothor. Any sightings of ships from the south?”

            The knight’s face didn’t give indication that he saw anything between them. Lothor shrugged a _no_ and continued past them to his quarters. The door’s slam echoed through the hall.

            Petyr looked at Sansa: her hood was down, cloak righted, hair slightly disheveled, lips more red than pink. Nothing _glaringly_ amiss. Nothing that Lothor would have noticed, at least. He gave her a sheepish smile. “Apologies, my lady. There would be certain, ah, _complications_ should this be made public.” There was a hint of hurt in her eyes, but it softened as Sansa worked through the consequences should they be caught. Or – as she worked through the consequences of being caught with someone like _him_. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ll show you to your cabin.”

            Petyr led her through the small maze of halls of the _Merling King_. It was no accident that Sansa’s quarters were conveniently placed near Petyr’s. Although, if he were being honest, Petyr would have much preferred to have their two quarters been one and the same. He tried to hide a smirk, but it refused to leave. Unfortunately, the ship was small and the journey long – word of the _improper_ arrangement would be common knowledge by tomorrow’s breakfast.

            “Here, my lady.” The room was cramped – hardly the size of a broom-closet in the Keep or Winterfell. Hardly fit for someone as beautiful and noble as Sansa Stark. But Petyr made sure to acquire a feather-bed for her, which barely fit lengthwise, and a chest of clothes. “As I said, there are spare dresses and the like for you. Not silk, unfortunately. I understand these aren’t _ideal_ conditions, but it shan’t be for long, sweetling.”

            Sansa took in the small room, taking her time to gaze over the worn wooden floor and walls. Two steps in and her knees already touched bed. Her fingers ran over the piles of furs. She turned – and like him, there was a smile there, not entirely proper, and entirely unmoving. “It’s fine, Lord Baelish. Even the room by itself would have been preferable to sleeping in the Keep another night.”

            _I doubt that_ , Petyr thought, knowing the fickle preferences of highborn all too well. And yet – never would Petyr let Sansa’s own fickle preferences be an issue. Should Sansa request finer quarters, Petyr would gladly give up his. Should she request her own ship, he would find the nearest harbor and buy an entire armada. Petyr would give Sansa the world if she but asked, and every other world in the universe. All for her. Anything for her.

            She moved to stand beside him again. Sansa peered into the hall, left, right, left again. Satisfied, she gave Petyr a coy smile. “Though, I must imagine your living quarters are far more ideal than mine?”

            Petyr smiled. He, too, made sure the hallway was clear of prying ears before hovering his lips just beside her ear. His voice fell warmly against her skin. “To be perfectly honest, my sweet, my quarters would be much, much more _ideal_ with you beside me every night.”

            He could _feel_ the blush that swept through her long before he saw it pinken her face. It was hardly the blush of a maiden – that could be spied in the playful tilt of her lips, or the wicked darkness clouding her eyes.

            Sansa toyed with the clasp of his cloak around her shoulders. It was the finest clothing she wore, and Petyr couldn’t help but picture her in the finest silks and velvets and jewels. Drab brown was not becoming of Sansa. “How long until the sailors break their fast, my lord?”

            Petyr could see _something_ working behind her eyes. Not playful, not innocent – maybe something completely _untoward_ of a proud lady like her. And yet, it sent a jolt of warm excitement through him. “Many sailors and knights have been awake for hours this morning, having awaiting your arrival. On a normal day, however, the men break fast at first light. May I ask why this is of importance?”

            Sansa turned from Petyr, toward the porthole. Pale morning light caught her hair, her skin, set herself shining. She unclasped the cloak, folding it neatly before setting it atop the many furs. The dress was of simple brown wool, yet any exposed flesh was lined with goosepimples. Petyr’s fingers _itched_ to run across her skin. “Perhaps another time, then.”

            Petyr could _hear_ the smile on her lips. “’Another time’ for what, sweetling?”

            “An experiment.” She sat on the edge of the bed, bounce on it a little, fingering the top fur. Petyr watched her toy with the edge of fabric, rubbing small circles across it. He was about to ask her to explain when Sansa spoke: “To determine whether my feather-bed is as comfortable as yours.”

            He didn’t know what he prayed for. (Petyr Baelish, a pious man praying to gods? what a ridiculous notion!) Should Petyr pray the seas were unkind _just enough_ to deter their journey? Or that the seas pushed the ship towards the Vale with infinite gusto – that they make it ashore and into a proper bed without a care for who heard?

            Lysa would, and would of course be the problem. She already had been with Catelyn. But she was as useful as the fool Dontos. To be used, and thusly thrown aside. A lot sooner, than he planned, but not without getting the Vale from her first.

            After all, Lysa was only a pawn. And here – a shining queen of dusk and sea and porcelain. There was no greater piece in all of Westeros.

            Petyr stared into her eyes – he wanted to sail those seas, to drown in them. “It has been a long night, for everyone on board. I suggest food and rest. But tonight… I promise tonight we can begin your little _experimentation_.”

            The playfulness in Sansa’s eyes spread into the sweetest smile. She rose and met him halfway in an embrace. Petyr relished the feel of her, relished how perfectly their bodies fit. Their lips met, a lazy press, a silent understanding that there would be so many more in the days to come.

            Petyr broke away, smiling at Sansa. “I do understand feather-beds are a rather _exciting_ topic amongst the young folk these days. Therefore, my lady Sansa, I would advise you contain your excitement. The walls aren’t as _thick_ as a castle, I’m afraid.”

            Sansa giggled, and it was the sound of a warm summer breeze. He tightened his arms around her, wanting to meld into her. His lips kissed hers, her jaw, her neck. He felt muscles move as she spoke. “I shall try to be quiet, my lord. Though, my lord Petyr, that does depend on _you_.” Petyr’s mouth roved up again, kissing the corners of her lips. There was a mischievous glint in her blue eyes. “I’ve heard certain rumors of how _little_ your finger might be, and–”

            Petyr pinched her sides, and Sansa laughed into his mouth as they kissed again. She was soft and warm and sweet.

            “Tonight, sweetling,” he whispered against her mouth.

            “Tonight,” she echoed into him.

            Tonight – oh how the hours would tick by so slowly. Petyr finally, reluctantly, broke their embrace when more footsteps trudged in the hall. He planted a chaste kiss on her hand before leaving. As he closed the door, Petyr spied the rising sun through the porthole, and counted the hours in his head remaining until it finally set in its brilliant streaks of orange and red.

            So many hours – but just that. Hours, and not the endless days or weeks or _years_ Petyr spent with the ethereal image of auburn curls and porcelain skin haunting his dreams. Haunting his waking moments, too. For years, Sansa sat at the corners of his mind, hiding behind the shadows of the endless plots and pieces. He saw her: hiding behind Catelyn’s skirts; sitting at the King’s tourney; standing before the Iron Throne.

            And now she was mere feet away, with the soft taste of her lips on his.

            There was a wicked smile plastered on his face as he made the short journey to his own cabin. Just a few hours: tick, tick tick.

            Oh, how Petyr could not wait until Sansa Stark was truly, irreversibly _his_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This was so much fun to write, I really hope you guys liked it as much as I loved writing it!!! :D These two are going to be the death of me, I swear.]


	4. { Sansa, 302 AC }

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This chapter will be the /actual/ last part of this story (I’ve been saying that for every previous chapter though lol). I kept debating how I wanted this part to go, and was really hung up on a certain plotline – so I scrapped it and went with something different.
> 
> I hope y’all like it!!!]

 

 

            Waves lapped against the side of the boat in soft, lingering kisses pushing the vessel north. The wood creaked quietly, rolled into the waves, _lived_ for the feel of water against its sides. Together, their melody sang in the open waters lit by a half moon. The world was awash in a soft, silvery glow. And against it all in the dim darkness of night, Sansa’s footsteps went unheard.

            She ran her fingers along the side of the hall, her feet slow and careful on her trek. The hall was empty save for her. The sailors were busy in their own rooms or patrolling the deck above. And should one come across the lost red Wolf out of her den, Sansa had the excuse of looking for the privy (to be said with the slow blinking of wide, innocent blue).

            Sansa wasn’t sure _where_ that confidence had come from earlier. Inviting herself into Petyr’s quarters after supper. The pretense of _experimentation_. Like one of the whores in King’s Landing, though with an exponential amount more clothes on. It was almost funny thing – her, a highborn lady with nary an inkling of ill repute, talking with the man infamous for ill repute. Whispers of Petyr Baelish’s _other_ endeavors weren’t very well hidden among the Red Keep. Ill whispers and ill tidings towards the man with a twisted smile. Yes, this night definitely could have been a funny thing if it hadn’t sent an unknown surge of fire through her veins. Unknown, but not unwanted.

            That confidence was a mix of things, Sansa decided. From the adrenaline of Joffrey’s death, from the adrenaline of escape with Ser Dontos. From the new knowledge that her Florian was and always was the drunken fool. That the man who truly saved her, who whisked her away from the pit of venomous serpents and ravenous lions – that man risked death and worse just for _her_.

            _Her soulmate_ , she thought. The inky letters at her side tickled at the idea.

            They tickled as Petyr led her into his quarters with a smile, his eyes a dark, hungry thing in the moonlight. They tickled as Petyr lifted her shift up and over her head, the sea air sending her flush skin covered with goosepimples, before he wrapped her and him in the furs of his bed. They tickled as Petyr traced his fingers along the blackness etched upon her flesh.

            Sansa used to _hate_ the thing. Hated how black it was upon her creamy skin. How it sucked in whatever light, how it seemed to seep away warmth and horde it for no other reason than to set her freezing. An ugly thing, a wicked plight caused by horrid gods. Her household hated it, hated her for having it, she always thought as a child. Her lady mother especially. When covered by clothing, Catelyn would forget about the letters. But in the moments when blackness was exposed, Sansa could _feel_ the displeasure seeping from her mother at the mere sight of the thing. Sansa never knew why.

            And she realized now – with this man’s fingers trailing up and down her sides, his mouth hot against her neck – that, no, it wasn’t as ugly a thing as her mother made it out to be.

            “Can I see yours?” Sansa asked, her hand pausing his (though not stopping, never, not with this wild heat that was overtaking her). Petyr’s lips gave a small twitch at a _second_ meaning, leaving a farewell trail of kisses along her neck before pushing himself away. Sansa saw and _felt_ the same hesitation in him as her skin cooled from lack of touch.

            Petyr rolled the sleeve of his tunic, the front laces hurriedly half undone by her earlier. She hadn’t finished before his own fingers grew greedy. Sansa realized that unlike her, Petyr was still dressed beneath the furs.

            The midnight letters revealed themselves inch by inch. Snow and chilly air filled the room of her mind as she stared at them. Sansa remembered the unknown man dressed in black, walking through the halls of Winterfell all those years ago.

            A part of Sansa wished she had said something else. Something so _not-childish_.

            But as she trailed her own fingers along his skin, feeling the thrumming pulse far beneath flesh, a part of her couldn’t help but smile at that simple phrase.

            _Mine_ , the words said.

            Sansa’s fingernail caught on thin lines running through her name. She felt them, each of them – too many to count – slashing through the dark letters. They were faint but there, always there. She couldn’t stop feeling the scars.

            “I had been a foolish child,” Petyr murmured. His body was still, his eyes tracing her languid movements. Sansa could feel the heat seeping into her fingers from him. Petyr continued, quieter, perhaps talking more to himself than to her: “Had I known all those years ago _who_ this Sansa Stark was, I would have awaited eagerly for the day we met. Instead I...”

            He didn’t finish. Sansa remembered the day they met the first time. Hiding behind her mother’s skirts as a strange Southron man strode through the halls. Wrapped head-to-toe in black furs, cheeks flushed from the unaccustomed cold. As the man stopped to make one-sided japes with her mother. And then - that lingering, unknown look as their eyes met. That unknown emotion in his eyes that Sansa saw again now – and felt. She wondered if hunger set her own blue eyes into the same hungering darkness that was always there in Petyr’s towards her. She imagined yes.

            And as quickly as they met, and as quickly as Sansa stumbled through those words, Petyr was gone. _Ushered_ away. And her lady mother turned the elegant midnight scrawl into a dirty, unwanted thing. Years passed before Sansa met the black-clad man again with eyes filled with need. Years and a boy separated them.

            Joffrey was a foolish boy, in every sense of the word. Foolish, and horrible, and false.

            A monster, she told the Tyrells.

            Petyr said he had been foolish, too. Sansa tried to imagine him as foolish and foolhardy. Her fingers continued to stroke those faint scars, and the image of a young boy with lazy black curls filled her head. There were tears there, of anger and fear. There were words thrown to the sky, a knife in his shaking fingers as he spurred the gods as only a thing and not the masters of humanity. She wondered how old Petyr had been when he cut her name into bloody strands. Wondered how old Petyr was when he finally gave up trying to fight fate. There were scars beneath her name, shaky curves and lines forming another name: _C – A – T_.

            Sansa bent to kiss the scars. They were so old, mostly healed in jagged lines. They tickled her lips.

            Petyr’s body had frozen at the contact, but the blood pumping through him was hot and thrumming. Sansa lifted his hand to kiss the palm, lifted his hand to cradle her cheek. She felt the contrasting heat of his skin and the cool metal of the rings.

            “We were both foolish children,” she said. Joffrey flitted through her mind, but Petyr was pressing his hand into her skin. That horrid Lion’s sneer dissipated into a man with soft, dark curls and mossy eyes. And a smile. A smile he never awarded to anyone else. Sansa couldn’t help but press back into his hand. It was warm and comforting. “But we have each other now. We’re together.”

            _Forever_ , the word caught in her mind. Would it be foolish to wish for something like that?

            Petyr brought his other hand to cradle her face. He said her name in the softest tones before their lips met.    

            It sounded like a prayer.

            “…Lady Stark?”

            The image broke into tendrils of smoke. It flittered away from her vision in hurried strokes. Before her wasn’t Petyr, or the feel of him. There wasn’t the sway of the boat beneath her feet or silver light filtering in through the windows.

            Sansa was in Winterfell. Sansa was back home.

            The great hall was filled with cold air and smallfolk staring at her with curiosity. They came in short bursts to spy the return of the North. Came to make certain of the gossip that filled the cold expanse of land that the Wolves were finally home. Each of them analyzed Sansa: flowing tresses of auburn air, eyes filled with the endless waves – the Tully look. And beside her, the Stark look, with his short brown hair and eyes. Eyes that had seen at least as many horrors of his own beyond the Wall.

            Sansa had heard in the whispers of _otherworldy_ gossip that the smallfolk shared – that the noble Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn had returned from the gods and sat in the halls of Winterfell again. Some smallfolk were _disappointed_ when they entered the hall, some were relieved not all the Wolves were mercilessly slain. But some, only some. More had perished in the last years than were alive – and the pain of loss sent Sansa rushing into the solitude of the crypts or of her mind.

            But now she turned to Jon, as if to confer whatever it was the smallfolk were asking for. She’d ask her half-brother in this unspoken manner far too many times, so lost in her thoughts. But thankfully, Jon understood, and he answered, “The land shall be returned to you as it was prior to the war.” It wasn’t just Sansa whose mind ran miles and miles away – Jon too had his own experiences that Sansa had to shake him out of.

            Too often her mind found its way back to the ship, or to the cold precipice of the Eyrie, or the long ride north to Winterfell. Too often Sansa thought of him.

            She stared at the shaft of light creeping across Winterfell’s stones. She felt her mind drift and leave the castle behind.

            When the sun cut the silver waves alight, frantic knocks at the door sent both Petyr and Sansa jolting awake. Louder, faster – _knockknocknocknock_ -. Petyr shrugged on his shirt from the night before, shushing Sansa with words meant to calm her beating heart. It felt as loud and as thrumming as the knocks. She watched Petyr approach the door, mumbling curses along the way.

            “Yes?” he answered to the sailor on the other side.

            The man nearly punched Petyr, how frantic his knocking had been. He was out of breath, too. “The lady, sir, she’s-” His words cut short at the sight of red peeking in errant directions from Petyr’s bed beyond. Sansa had hoped the furs were thick enough to cover her nakedness.

            “The lady is but a tired and frightened child,” Petyr assured the sailor. But: Petyr’s manner of dress (or lack thereof); the manner of his hair mussed from “sleep”; the young child lying with flush cheeks in his bed; the lingering sharpness of the hours spent decidedly _not_ sleeping… An unspoken fear shot through the man’s eyes. Sansa couldn’t imagine anything that would truly assure the sailor of the misdeeds that _weren’t_ happening that night, in this very bed with a once-vey innocent young lady. It only took a heavy clinking of coins before the sailor agreed to tell the rest of the ship the Lady Sansa was aboard and in good health.

            When Petyr came back to her, there was a glint of fear in his eyes along with a sheepish grin at being _caught_. Something almost childish. The way he then kissed her and ran his fingers across her flushed skin was nothing at all childish.

            Sansa was _still_ a child, after all. In age only, her sixteenth nameday quickly approaching. In experience, however – in pain and suffering and the cruel ways of the world – Sansa Stark was not so much a child, not anymore. The little girl who believed in stories and knights and chivalry was long dead. The little girl with eyes filled with hope and innocence – it had been many long years since Sansa last saw her.

            “A snow queen,” Petyr murmured into her lips, his voice filled with content and excitement. “No longer a child, but the queen of Westeros.”

            _No longer a child -_ that’s what he would have told her now, in Winterfell. That’s what he _did_ tell her, whispered words in those nights that seemed to go on forever. In hushed plans spoken in the heart of a barren Godswood high in the mountains. In fingers tracing circles upon her skin. In pleas and prayers to the gods long after the castle had fallen asleep. Sansa Stark was only a child, yes. But with Petyr Baelish at her side, she could be so, so much more.

            Oh how she wished Petyr were here with her.

            Sansa’s mind returned in time to hear the plea of the next smallfolk: a man and woman farmer not far south from Winterfell. They spoke of their prayers to the gods to return the Starks back home, and of the abominable horrors the Boltons had left in their short reign.

            _I’ll make them love me_. She thought those words so long ago, so long before _everything_ that led her here. That led her back home, alone.

            Sansa smiled, though she could feel it didn’t leave her lips. “Many thanks to your prayers – the gods were kind to us to set the North right. Should you ever need anything from us, seed or animal or supplies – though we are rebuilding just as the rest of the North – we would be more than glad to provide.”

            In their thanks, she heard their words crack.

            When the last of the dealings were done with, Sansa and Jon parted to make peace with their own ghosts.

            _At least he has Ghost_ , she thought, watching as the white wolf licked Jon’s fingers. The wolf was a somber as his owner. Sansa tried asking Jon about the years they spent apart, but he was silent. She could see and hear and feel the weight of his horrors in the shared silence they spent at meals or in council. Sometimes he would rest his hand over his chest opposite his heart, leaving it there. As though a gaping hole from a cannon blast was sending all that Jon was out into the world. Once, Sansa heard him cry a name into the cold night.

            She watched them wander through the courtyard, making curt small talk with the people. Out they left into the fields, dirtied snow crunching in their wake. _He has Ghost, and I am left with nothing_.

            The North deserved the Starks, and Sansa was the only one left. Jon was a Stark – in technicality. A bastard Snow. She was the only true Lady of Winterfell. But sometimes Sansa couldn’t help but feel that the smallfolk and the knights and the other lords looked towards _him_ , not her. Some growled in displeasure if she gave sentence and not Jon, though they could do nothing other than give their thanks and leave. Weeks later they would come back and ask the same favor, as if she was only a poor substitute they needn’t pay any heed to.

            She tried not to let it get to her, but they did.

            Months upon months were spent like this. Sansa watched the northern sun draw down, clouds painting the sky in soft hues of evening. It was still too early for supper. Sansa hadn’t had the motivation for her hobbies of before, scraps of cloth and bolts of thread lying unused in her chambers. Often she would wander the halls as her lady mother had, speaking with the serving hands and placing herself in their good graces. Sometimes Sansa would visit the Godswood, thankful for the quietness – not thankful for the single prayer she had, and how it was likely to go unheard.

            Winterfell was a ruined thing on the mend. Sansa wondered if her walls and towers would ever be repaired, or if they should remain crumbled and broken and forgotten. _A castle made of snow_. A castle repaired with smooth, deft fingers in the quiet of a Godswood.

            Sansa placed her palm over her side. It burned and froze and throbbed and felt _empty_. Was this what Jon was feeling? This lack of his other half? Those letters had been a terrible lonely ache these past months, and Sansa couldn’t help entertain the wicked ideas that she truly was alone. That she was left in the cold North without the man that was gods-fated to be hers.

            She might be.

            “Riders!” called a man below. “Open the gates!”

            Sansa rushed slowly along the balcony, careful of her appearance even when her heart was a painful thrum. _Gods, please_ , she prayed. _Please, alive_.

            Riders came through the gates, one at a time, their horses hot and panting in the chilly evening air. They were Stark men, a good sign. A few went without banners, many without weapons. Near the end a wagon heavy with boxes and barrels of supplies. And that was it. Metal slid against stone as the gates were lowered again.

            She stared at the cart, could picture it – could picture him lying there. Cold, dead. Or perhaps forgotten along the way, men not caring whether he returned dead or alive.

            Nobody would care.

            Her side burned with a freezing cold. Sansa’s grip on the railing was painful.

            “Hold the gates!”

            Her breath caught.

            Against the thrumming of her blood and the cold whispers in her head, Sansa heard it. Heavy hooves crunching against the brown snow. Louder, louder.

            And there – one final horseman.

            A part of her wanted to rush down the stairs two at a time and jump into his arms. A part of her wanted to cry out and weep and collapse against the balcony. A part of her wanted to thrash at the knights and men who hadn’t bothered to steer him back to her. Back home.

            Sansa didn’t do any of those things, being the Lady of Winterfell. But she let her imagined self entertain each idea in full as she descended the balcony in steady steps. She watched him dismount, and tried her hardest to keep the childish smile that was threatening to overtake her entire face.

            Sansa curtsied, as was proper of a lady, leading the Lord Baelish into the warmth of the castle. “This way to the library,” she announced for the sake of the smallfolk and servants lingering in the courtyard.

            They walked side by side through the halls of Winterfell. Her feet led them _away_ from the library, hoping that no one was curious enough to follow. They were only cautious enough about the last surviving Stark. Only cautious enough to save a girl’s _claim_ on their livelihood. Never would they care about a Stark defiled by someone like him.

            Never would they care if they knew.

            Sansa led Petyr up the stairs towards her chamber (which had once belonged to her parents, Jon unwilling to sleep there despite being the alleged _de facto_ Lord of the castle). She led Petyr up and up, and somewhere along the way their fingers caught each other’s. Petyr’s were calloused and cold from the long ride north.

            She turned to him, sandwiching his hand between hers. The callouses were new and unusual, especially on him. It was then she realized his riding gloves were gone. “My Lord, your hands are freezing. Perhaps I shall warm them up for you?”

            Petyr, she saw, had a grin that only grew into a wicked thing. That grew into a smile. _His_ smile.

            He stepped onto the same stair as her, their eyes almost aligned. Sansa was taller now, several inches taller. Petyr didn’t take notice, didn’t take shame in being smaller. Sansa might have thought he thrilled in looking up at her. Petyr’s dirt- and snow-covered furs brushed against hers. “As the Lady wishes, though would she prefer in her chambers or in this stairwell? I don’t believe we’ve sullied _this_ tower, not yet…”

            Sansa laughed. Petyr’s grin grew even larger, his body closer, fingers gripping tighter within hers. She wondered if he could taste her laughter, and if Petyr was as starved of her company as Sansa was of his. “Lord Baelish, as much as that sounds _enticing_ , it’s been a long several months since we last…saw each other. At least allow me the comfort of furs at my back

            Petyr leaned in, their noses a hair’s width apart. She could taste the mint of his breath. Gods how she missed that taste. Petyr’s voice was as wicked as his grin, “Who says you’ll be on your back?”

            The last flight of stairs were an agonizing obstacle to Sansa’s chambers. They hadn’t had supper that evening, so lost in the taste and fill of each other.

            When the moon crawled high over Winterfell, Sansa looked into Petyr’s eyes. Those soft, mossy eyes that never fell from hers, set into a face filled with content. He smelled like her, and she like him.

            Sansa watched Petyr watch her. And in the softness of his grey-green she saw it again. There had been a vision once, years and a child ago, in a hall of red and gold and iron. Sunlight filtered through the windows, echoes of waves crashing against the hall. A vision of a man and woman sitting atop the throne, twin crowns upon their heads. Dressed in the finest silks of grey and green and black. High above the court. The whole of the world beneath their feet, the whole of the world at their command.

            To rule with her gods-given soulmate by her side, to rule as two hearts and bodies and minds joined into one.

            Sansa smiled into another kiss, one that was far from the last.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I hope I had some of you fooled there for a minute lol.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you liked this final part!! I’ve definitely loved writing this trash story, so let me know what you thought! :D]


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